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 Currently playing China Vs. France - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4026585&pagenumber=5#post530584990  We will be playing the Showcase Scenario USS Gerald Ford in the game Command Modern Operations (CMO). Like boats? Airplanes? Submarines? Acronyms? Then oh boy, is this for you! What is CMO? It is a military grade simulation of naval and air combat. We have radar lovingly modelled, kinematic flight models of weaponry, and realistic weapons systems. The US Marine Corps uses this and seems to really like it. We'll have dogfights, anti-submarine warfare, and coordinated strikes with Tomahawks missiles. All of this will be via screen shots, gifs if we get a cool moment, and through TacView Advanced. Tacview lets us show a 3d battle space engagement as it happens in CMO. Unfortunately it's not quite the same as TacView in DCS/Falcon where we can lovingly watch every angle as it occurs and see exactly how we screwed up. CMO recently had a monster update that added the long awaited Strike Planner (along with a ton of other poo poo). But the Strike Planner is the biggie. How do I play? You can claim a pilot slot, boat slot, or just a slot anywhere. You may have the option to add input, or you can take pride as your CMO Avatar, Goony McPilot, eat's poo poo and dies in a fire. I will prosecute the mission as best possible, and if you think I should strike that Bar Lock, then  .The Situation quote:Desperate to sell its product to foreign markets and secure an inflow of currency to buoy its central bank, Moscow has invested in several illicit trade routes to North Korea, Iran, and others willing to deify US and European sanctions. Unwilling to risk war with Russia but unhappy that their sanctions are being avoided, the US and NATO are doing everything that they possibly can, short of direct combat, to aggravate Russia. That sounds fairly straight forward, what could possibly go wrong. The Briefing quote:Good morning, Admiral To summarize, 1. We've got a COD run with our mission tasking. 2. Embassy staff is awaiting reinforcement from the Newport 3. There's a Russian surface ground that should be 500 miles north heading towards us. 4. And there's a Russian nuclear submarine, and we don't know where it is. 5. We've got some drones and P-8's for support. 6. Some other ships are nearby but awaiting our tasking. For the moment we get ourselves set up, evaluate the area, and await that COD run. Friendly Order of Battle CVN 78 USS Gerald Ford CVW-8 (Special Action to decide Air Flight Make Up) The USS Gerald Ford was christened on 9 November 2013, after 8 years of tumultuous development and construction. It has a crew of 4,660, a beam of 41.0 meters, and a length of roughly 333 meters. It's huge. Inside is two nuclear reactors to keep this thing moving. It can hit a top speed of 35 knots (at least in CMO, who knows in the real world) If it sinks, we're done. Game over. Yooper has failed all of Goondom. SSN 783 Mississippi The Mississippi is a Virginia class submarine christened on 3 December 2011. It has enough sensors to choke a cyber donkey. Weaponry is a huge pack of TLAM's, the Tomahawk. Yes, we could hunt other subs, but this thing is a missile boat. DDG 74 USS McFaul An Arleigh Burke destroyer that carries an amazing complement of Tomahawks as well as a potent air defense system. DDG 98 USS Forrest Sherman Another Arleigh Burke destroyer. Why two? Why not? DDG 107 USS Gravely Guess what? Another Arleigh Burke Destroyer! DDG 119 Delbert D. Black I poo poo you not, another Arleigh Burke. T-AO 205 USNS John Lewis Something that is not an Arleigh Burke! A replenishment and oiling ship. VP-8 4 X P-8A Poseidon - ASW-ASuW Supreme. VUP-19 2 X RQ-4C Global Hawk - Surveillance drones USAF 44th Recon Sqdn 1 X RQ-180 - REDACTED T-EPF 12 USNS Newport (NOTE - Running Low on Fuel!) This is our Marine landing craft. Think GI Joe weapon platform but with angrier people on board. CURRENT TASK 1. Position the CSG within 350nm of Luanda and standby for taskings or contingencies. 2. Provide air support to USMC forces guarding the US Embassy in Luanda and NATO forces at the Luanda International Airport. 3. Maintain distant contact with the Russian surface group. 4. Locate the Russian SSN suspected to be operating in the area 5. Transport the marines from USNS Newport to the US Embassy in Luanda, there is a helipad but it is vulnerable to ground fire. A Landing Zone (LZ) has been established 300 meters NNW of the embassy which will be quicker. Representatives from an un-nammed 3-letter agency have observation on the area. Evacuating non-essential personnel from the Embassy on return flights is assumed 6. Protect neutral shipping in the area Awesome. We'll go through the OPFOR on a later post once we've introduced the layout and systems. Win or Lose? We will accomplish the mission as best possible and be happy if the USS Gerald Ford doesn't sink.  VOTE VOTE VOTE How heavy do we go on F-35's? Option 1 - MAXIMUM F-35's - CVW-8 has the maximum amount of F-35C's as originally planned. (20 F-35, 12 F/A-18E BLK III, 12 F/A-18F BLK III) Option 2 - MEDIUM F-35's - CVW-8 has some F-35's replaced with Super Hornets and an increased amount of EW and AEW aircraft (14 F-35, 12 F/A18E BLK III, 16 F/A-18F BLK III) Option 3 - MINIMUM F-35's - CVW-8 has most of the F-35's replaced with Super Hornets. We also have double the amount of EA-18G Growlers. But we have less refueling options... Please pick one option! Next few posts will go over the current situation. Yooper fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Mar 20, 2023 |
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Mar 9, 2023 02:28
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 First off we're going to look at the big picture before looking at each group.  1. CSG-12 (This is the Carrier and close Escorts) 2. USS Gravley - The 49.4 dB is how "loud" it is, the CAV means it is cavitating and is really really loud. 3. This is the SSN 782, our nuclear subarmine. 4. That is our inbound Osprey carrying the orders. 5. Our RQ-180 UAV. 6. Luanda, the main AO. The blue rectangles you see are ground units. 7. The orange denotes "Unfriendly". The satellite dish looking thing is a radar while the control tower icon is an air base.  This is our carrier group. CMO has it literally "grouped" so these three units are in formation. It also helps to declutter our screens. On the right you can see all of our weapons as well as fuel and such. The aircraft quantity here looks really low, and will be until we decide what our air wing is.  The Newport is carrying our Marines as cargo (aren't they always?). It has a single Osprey that we can use to ferry 24 Marines and land on a helipad. The Newport has a fuel problem. At FLANK speed it will do 43 knots, but run out of fuel in 5 hours. At FULL it will do 40 knots, and last ten hours, or we can do 35 knots and go 20 hours. My initial thought is we do the 35 knots and then limp to the Oiler.  The sub has some poo poo going on. First off, those big green rings are convergence zones where we can hear (and be heard) really well. Subs are hard. We can under the layer, over the layer, in the layer, as deep as possible, periscope depth, or anywhere in between. We could have a multi page discussion just on the details of properly using a sub. Ours has some damage, this is bad. Hopefully we won't need to put it into a place where it has to hunt another sub. Also of note, we will not be using active sonar. It's like shining a bright light in a dark room. Yes, you can see, but unless you have blinded the bad person in the room, they now know exactly where you are.  Our nearest asset (that will be on station soon) is a P-8A Poseidon with the Fighting Tigers. This one is set up with a "Maritime Surveillance" loadout. So no sonar, no torpedos, but it does have surface scanning radar. We'll use this to get a good picture of what is in front of the Marines. Drones We've got two drones in the air right now. One is our RQ-180 which is short on cool online info but heavy on bullshit. It's got sensors, can fly high, and is probably invisible to radar. The other is the MQ-4C Global Hawk, it also has cool radar and cameras but probably not quite as cool as the 180. INTEL quote:Russian Naval Forces: A major surface action group (KUG in Russian) centered on the Battle Cruiser Admiral Nakhimov was heading to the Mediterranean but diverted south four days ago. This force is being tracked by satellite and shadowed by USS Mississippi. Current location approximately 550nm Northwest of Luanda. A Kirov, Slava, DDG and FFG. The Soviet/Russian doctrine focused on an overwhelming mass of anti-ship missiles to knock out a target. I assume we'll eventually have to deal with that. But if they can't see us, they can't shoot us. So hunting that sub will be critical. Oh, and to make it even more challenging, even if we find them, we can't fly nearer than 50 nautical miles. The SAM defences are tough, but our F-35's are designed to hit stuff like this. Air assets look to be SU-30's but who knows, supposedly we'll know more soon. quote:We’re expecting more detail on Angolan forces and disposition from the briefing team, the chaos on the ground in that country has really mixed up the intelligence picture at the moment. As we understand it, the air force and navy remain loyal to the government, but the army has had some defections. The most potent threat are their Su-30s at Lubango. We'll let the votes come in for the F-35's and then get time moving!
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Mar 9, 2023 02:32
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Option 2
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Mar 9, 2023 02:42
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I'll say Option 2 as well, and sign me up for one of those F/A-18 seats.
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Mar 9, 2023 03:17
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I'll take an F-35 pilot spot.
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Mar 9, 2023 03:38
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Could I get a P-8 slot?
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Mar 9, 2023 03:49
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I would like to skipper the Mississippi. e: Also, Option 2. I remember the Kuril Clash and I have a feeling we'll want a decent amount of ASW in the air. e2: Actually, do we have anything that'll have a Magnetic Anomaly Detector? Those things are like magic. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Mar 9, 2023 |
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Mar 9, 2023 03:59
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I say Option 2. And if possibly I'd like to captain the Gravely.
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Mar 9, 2023 04:24
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I would like a slot on an F-35, and please put down a vote for OPTION 1
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Mar 9, 2023 04:24
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I’ve never follow one of these in real time, so I was going to just follow along. But then I saw the USS Delbert Black and since that was my grandfathers name, I guess I gotta request that one Also put in for Air Group Option 2 Sir DonkeyPunch fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Mar 9, 2023 |
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Mar 9, 2023 04:29
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habeasdorkus posted:e2: Actually, do we have anything that'll have a Magnetic Anomaly Detector? Those things are like magic. That's the P-8's bread and butter isn't it?
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Mar 9, 2023 04:30
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Arrath posted:That's the P-8's bread and butter isn't it? The P-8 doesn't have a MAD unless its the Indian Navy variant. Also I'm totally down to be a P-8 pilot please. Lets go option 1 maximum F-35, lets ride the lightning!!!!
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Mar 9, 2023 04:33
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Quick question: what’s the likelihood the Russian sub captain wants to defect? We could get him an RV…?
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Mar 9, 2023 04:34
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Jimmy4400nav posted:The P-8 doesn't have a MAD unless its the Indian Navy variant. Well I'll be! I thought the P-8 took over those duties from the P-3.
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Mar 9, 2023 04:39
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I’ll take a P-8 slot as well. Air Group Option 1, please.
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Mar 9, 2023 04:52
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Please put me down as an E-2 Hawkeye pilot please. I like being eyes in the sky
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Mar 9, 2023 04:54
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Option 3, and please plane me in a Super Hornet if possible.
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Mar 9, 2023 04:56
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Yay, Yooper's CMO is back! I vote for Option 2 on the aircraft list, and put me in one of the drone controller slots, please, because I am lazy and dumb.
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Mar 9, 2023 05:03
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What is it with Goons and Angola? Option two seems a good compromise, if I understand a single thing about plane talk. And I don't
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Mar 9, 2023 05:46
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Sir DonkeyPunch posted:I’ve never follow one of these in real time, so I was going to just follow along. But then I saw the USS Delbert Black and since that was my grandfathers name, I guess I gotta request that one …was your grandfather the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy by any chance?
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Mar 9, 2023 05:51
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Voting Option 2 Please sign me for an F-35 or F/A-18 slot.
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Mar 9, 2023 07:18
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Option 2 and Put me in as an autonomy lacking tanker pilot.
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Mar 9, 2023 08:36
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A vote for Air Group Option 2, and if it's still open, I'll take an F-35 pilot slot. (If not, I'll take the USS Forrest Sherman instead. Equally incompetent at sea and in the air here!)
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Mar 9, 2023 09:23
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New Yooper CMO LP? Hell yeah. If you need a bad guy in the narrative put me in Nakhimov, if not, any DDG spot will do.
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Mar 9, 2023 10:04
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Pirate Radar posted:…was your grandfather the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy by any chance? Sorry, first name match only, I should have been more specific
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Mar 9, 2023 14:29
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Hey, can I fly an f-35?
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Mar 9, 2023 15:08
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9 F-35 seats left if we're going with package 2. e: Since I claimed the captain's chair of the MIssissippi, I did some basic training (aka, googling) on its systems. Looks like I've got one of my two countermeasures packages down, as well as one of my torpedo tubes. So at most I could launch a 12 VLS Tomahawk/3 Harpoon alpha strike. I also only can fire 3 Mk 48 fish at once if I'm forced into sub-hunting. Does this damage make the Mississippi any louder? I see we're at ~42 dB right now (roughly as loud as a birdcall, or a library) , can't tell if that's louder or quieter than expected considering our 10 kt speed. Also, I can't find an easy source on what the ambient noise level is in the South Atlantic Ocean. From googling, it looks like the Virginia class does have a towed sonar array, so there'll be fun "just above the layer with the array below the layer" and vice versa options. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Mar 9, 2023 |
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Mar 9, 2023 15:50
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Option 2. Please assign me to the most vulnerable aircraft or bote you have available.
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Mar 9, 2023 16:01
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glynnenstein posted:Option 2. Found the Oiler Skipper.
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Mar 9, 2023 16:06
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I'mma re-read Red Storm Rising, even if the ASW in that book is mostly FFG's. Deploy towed array! Parie-Masker operational!
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Mar 9, 2023 18:02
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Man, our nuclear sub doesn't even have nukes? What a ripoff. So much for starting a hot war with the Russians.
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Mar 10, 2023 00:16
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Can't wait to drop enough sonobuoys so people can walk on them from west Africa to St HelenaSolarFire2 posted:I'mma re-read Red Storm Rising, even if the ASW in that book is mostly FFG's. Deploy towed array! Parie-Masker operational! Prairie-Masker.
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Mar 10, 2023 00:22
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Checking on notables about the USS Delbert:Wikipedia posted:On 29 September 2022, Delbert D. Black seized 7200 kilograms of hashish in the Gulf of Oman. Looks like we know how to party. Grandpa would be proud
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Mar 10, 2023 01:31
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 Voting is complete! Option 1 - 3 Option 2 - 10 Option 3 - 1  14 X F-35C Lightning II - 2025 Version, Block 3I/4 ESM - Our bread and butter. This thing is a very capable fighter, striker, and ECM platform. The F-35C is best deployed a bit differently. You don't want to dogfight with it, nor do you just Leroy it into hostiles. We'll dig into more of that when we need to strike something. 12 F/A - 18E Super Hornet Block III - This (and the F's) will do the bulk of our striking once the SAM's and hostiles are down. While it is "only" a Gen IV, it's still supremely capable. 16 F/A - 18F Super Hornet Block III - Notably it has a second seat for a WSO. See notes above about the F/A-18E. 7 - EA-18G - Growler baby! This bird wields HARM's (anti radar mssiles) as well as a potent suite of OECM, offensive electronic counter measures. A jammer. Best deployed directly behind our friendlies to scramble the radar return. 5 - E-2D - This is our airborne early warning, a flying radar dish basically. 8 - MQ-25 - A tanker, a drone tanker. This is a UAV that can carry fuel and a meager suite of cameras. Right! As of Glynnenstein, everyone is into a boat or aircraft of their choice.  Habeasdorkus and his merry mess of miscreants serves one main role here, and that is with 20 UGM-109E's. I'm not sure we gain much by sending you out hunting as an injured boat. So we'll send you down just over the layer and go nice and slow. We'll continue towards the oiler station and sweep that are as our CZ passes through that area.  We have a P-8 that is ~ 300 nm out from Luanda. I plan on having it do a circuit outside of radar range and determine what naval assets are in the area.  We also have an MQ-4C coming from the north that is going to go and find that Russian Strike Group. We should be able to identify it from ~ 150 nm out and just shadow it. Speaking of drones our RQ-180 is currently at 50k ft and heading directly towards the AO. We'll use this guy as an assistant to the F-35's or to sneak a peek before hostilities kick off. It is very unlikely the Bar Locks can see this thing. Maybe over central Angola where there's like 4 Bar Locks converging, but no way can an old single radar see it.  Gervasius and Co. will scour the area near our holding position and run zig-zags. I've slowed some of our DDG's down so they do not cavitate.  We will also set our first ASW zone to follow the McFaul and send HSM-70 Spartans #9 up. This is a Seahawk carrying sonobuoys and two sweet MK54 LHT Torpedos. We do the same for the Gravley, but the MH-60 won't be ready for four more hours. Two more similar zones go up for the Delbert Black and Forrest Sherman.  The Goon Ford also gets a solid ASW cube, though this one covers all the sides seeing as we're kind of sonar blind in our screws. LOADOUTS 12 of our 14 F-35's are operational, two are broken. Really. Our choices are really in three groups, Air to Air, Standoff, SEAD, and Bombs. Oh, an internal or external. If external we can carry more, but our radar signature is much larger.  Standoff includes JSOW's, flying cluster bomb dispensers, or the BROACH, a strike based package. Both have a range of ~ 60 nm.  These HARM's are awesome. They lock onto a hostile radar and blow it up, if the radar turns off they remember and will try and destroy it. Our Hornets can also wield these... The standoff range is huge, like 140 nm.  Last we have our bombs, and one notable unit, the SDB. So the LGB's require a laser, but can hit moving targets and are very precise. The JDAM's use a GPS coordinate so you don't need to have a visual or go below the clouds. Slightly less accurate. The SDB has a 60nm range, uses GPS, and has terminal guidance with active radar. This one has a penetrator warhead.  I really like SDB's. Unfortunately we only have 50. We're going to ponder our F-35C loadouts and do up our Growlers first.  Our options are Only OECM, HARM's, or Longer Range Harm's. We can take more, with less range, or less, and have longer legs. Once we reach our station Luanda will be 350nm away, but there's a lot of poo poo further east that might need to be blown up... So I'm going with longer range set ups.  The last thing we'll do before we take a break and ponder loadouts is set Grumio into an AEW racetrack just away from the carrier group. I'm going to put him slightly north and east.  We are 27 seconds into the scenario. The P-8 has a variety of skunks with radar emitting signals (the dashed lines). We also have a very suspicious cluster of 4 ships near the Newport  . Literally 38nm away. Next actions will be to get a CAP going and decide if we want our other P-8's to launch and start hunting subs. Current Idea I'm thinking we use our F-35's to sanitize the airspace and then let the Hornets do the heavy lifting. So 1/3 AA, 1/3 Stand-off, and 1/3 SDB. Once they cycle through we can re-arm with JDAM's or LGB's to support strikers. Anyone have any different ideas?
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Mar 10, 2023 01:37
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Out of curiosity, why did nautical miles and land miles end up being different things? Does anyone here know?
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Mar 10, 2023 02:12
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PurpleXVI posted:Out of curiosity, why did nautical miles and land miles end up being different things? Does anyone here know? I think it was due to the need for precise navigation at sea where they couldn't use paces or furlongs, or whatever hosed up unit of measurement, they instead had to rely on something measurable with a sextant and based it on 1/60 of a degree of latitude.
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Mar 10, 2023 02:59
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Yooper posted:I'm thinking we use our F-35's to sanitize the airspace and then let the Hornets do the heavy lifting. So 1/3 AA, 1/3 Stand-off, and 1/3 SDB. Once they cycle through we can re-arm with JDAM's or LGB's to support strikers. agreed. whole point of a stealthy aircraft is that you can use them to go into non-permissive airspace, and then make the airspace permissive, so the older brothers can come in without getting shot at/shot down
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Mar 10, 2023 03:08
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PurpleXVI posted:Out of curiosity, why did nautical miles and land miles end up being different things? Does anyone here know? A nautical mile is based on latitude and longitude. I think it’s only called a nautical mile because it’s coincidentally close in length to a statute mile. If we had divided degrees of latitude by 100 instead of 60 it wouldn’t be as similar.
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Mar 10, 2023 03:35
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Yeah, agreed. the F-35's should also be set to only internal weapons until the airspace is cleared, obviously.
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Mar 10, 2023 03:37
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This might be a limitation of the game, but is there a reason we don’t have any sat coverage to tell us where the Russian surface fleet is?
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Mar 10, 2023 03:39
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